Posts Tagged ‘Amazon Prime’

On Sunday, as I was returning to my pew post communion, one of my fellow parishioners, Susan Schuette, reached out her hand to me and asked if everything was alright? She had noticed a dearth of postings since Election Day.

Wednesday, the day after the Election, I had cataract surgery [which went very well] and it gave me the perfect excuse to be at home with the blinds drawn, to not listen to the news, to eat comfort food and to binge watch on Amazon Prime. I ate enough mashed potatoes with gravy AND butter for a family of five.

In the slightly hungover state from the relaxants they gave me while working on my eye, I sought to absorb the absolute fact the Donald Trump, television reality star, billionaire real estate mogul, orange tinged with the magnificently weird hair, was President Elect.

Rejoicing is being had on the right while the left is shattered and, quite frankly, totally at a loss as to what has happened.

My dear, dear friend Sarah, known since we were three, and I spoke today. She lived for seven years in Franco’s Spain and feels we are moving in that direction, to be living in that kind of fear. A social worker, her Hispanic clients are terrified, if undocumented they fear a door to door search for them. If documented, they simply fear being profiled and harassed or worse.

Events since the election have fueled all our fears.

At an Episcopal Church in Maryland, the times for Spanish language service were torn down, replaced by graffiti that said: Trump Nation. Whites only!

At the University at Pennsylvania, incoming African American students received emails from a group called “Mudmen,” announcing a “Nigger” lynching every day.

In Wellsville, NY a dugout was spray painted with the words: Make America White Again, with a swastika.

The swastika seems to be a much used symbol for those who are doing these things.

It has been reported in St. Louis a group of high school students marched through their school halls with a Trump sign shouting, “White power! White power!”

A Muslim woman at the University of Michigan was approached by a white man, demanding she remove her hijab or be set on fire.

Ah, yes, the milk of human kindness…

When asked what I think, I say that I expect the next few years are going to be experiential.

A friend phoned me on Thursday and we talked about the election and he said, well you don’t have anything to be worried about. After all, Pence is the one who is going to be running things after all.

Pence is homophobic. Mentioning that to my friend, I said I did not feel safer as a gay man in America since this election. Some of Trump’s supporters say unpleasant things about us though Trump did say in an interview with Lesley Stahl for “60 Minutes” that gay marriage was the law of the land.

He also told, in a bit of milk toast sort of way, that his supporters who might be doing anti-Semitic actions or harassing Hispanics to stop it. It didn’t sound all that forceful.

The New York Post has called “fake” incidents of hate crimes since the election. Maybe they would have happened anyway. I’m not convinced.

It is a sobering time. It is now my responsibility to be vigilant and to work against moments of hate. It is my responsibility to work to restore a more liberal voice in this country and I will. I’m not sure how but I will find some way to do it.

Republicans own the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives and 32 of 50 gubernatorial posts. They have the run of the land. Let us see what they do with it.

And let us be prepared to be the loyal opposition.

At Christ Church Episcopal on Sunday, safety pins were given out. They are to say to those who are frightened because of color, sex, race, religion, disability that you are a person they can be safe with.

Mine will be worn tomorrow. It maybe I will offer them to my students. It is my hope we all continue to be safe and that we are not falling into my friend Sarah’s fear that we are living in a time that will evolve into Franco’s Spain.

After an unusually long day for me, I have returned to the cottage, turned on the floodlights over the creek, made myself a martini and am listening to the YoYo Ma station on Amazon Prime.

The bank I have used for a decade or more, First Niagara, was purchased by Key Bank. My business account has been basically unavailable now for three weeks. An earnest and very good young man by the name of Jeff Hannett has been working diligently to help me access it. We’re about 80% there. If it weren’t for Jeff, I would have transferred to another bank. I intend to let the CEO of Key Bank know that. A half dozen friends of mine have pulled their business from Key and gone to other banks.

That was my first stop this morning. Then others and now I am home, looking over the floodlit creek and listening to soft and gentle music, sipping my vodka martini and finding the peace in a long day.

A week from today is the election. I can’t wait for it to be over except that it won’t be over. The rancor raised over the last eighteen months probably will continue until the end of my life. Polarization has become the norm. And worn as I am now, I will be more worn as the years go on.

Some Republicans are pronouncing they will work to see that Hillary Clinton is impeached in her first three months as President, if she is elected.

Some Trump supporters seem to be talking about violence in the streets if the election goes to her.

Earlier today while waiting for Jeff at the bank, I started reading an article that said our beloved “Founding Fathers” were even more rancorous than this election, even less civil, even more brutal. That gives me faith we will get through this. Please, let us get through this. Please.

Bethany Thompson, an eleven-year-old who was left with a crooked smile after fighting for her life against brain cancer, killed herself today because of bullying. She went home, found a gun and shot herself in the head.

My heart is broken and my soul is so angry… So ANGRY.

Speaking of angry, Assad, President of Syria, said today that his country was better off since the civil war that has wracked his country, sent half of them away as refugees and killed a half a million of them.

He has just put his face next to the word delusional in the dictionary.

The pictures I have seen today from Aleppo will haunt me today until the day I die. Another little boy on a stretcher, being treated, in pain and bewildered. And I still wonder: where is that bewildered little boy in the back of an ambulance that captured our attention a couple of months ago? I wonder if he lives? I wonder if he will ever be whole again, if he does live?

Also, in that part of the world, Iraqi forces are said to be on the doorstep of Mosul. Families attempting to flee that are captured find the men separated from their families and are probably being sent off to an inevitable death.

My heart, tonight, is with them also.

In the world of corporate deal making, it is being talked about on “the Street” that Goldman Sachs is encouraging Apple to make a bid to capture Time-Warner from the clutches of AT&T. Interesting.

Apple certainly could afford it. AT&T seems such an odd match for Time-Warner.

Hulu will be launching an OTT service with multiple channels next year. Its viability moved forward today with deals with Disney/ABC.

How can I be talking about the OTT opportunities in the same letter in which I am talking about the slaughter in Aleppo?

I care about both but at the end of the day, what is happening in Aleppo is far more important than what is happening in OTT.

I am gliding south on the 8:45 out of Hudson, down to the city for a few meetings this week and then will head back Wednesday evening. The Hudson River is still and mirrors the muted colors of fall. A barge makes its way north to Albany. In certain stretches, it is possible to imagine that this was the way the river looked when Henry Hudson first sailed north.

It is so placid a scene that it is almost possible to detach from the battering of the news.

It has been two days since I have written; Saturday afternoon I was having a late, for me, brunch at the Red Dot before heading home to service any Trick or Treaters. Several people were sitting not far from me, chatting rather loudly and raucously about their summer exploits of jet skis and pool parties, dancing and dating.

At the moment, I was reading the New York Times and was feeling very aware of the various crises that are engulfing the planet. A Russian jet had crashed in the Sinai earlier that day. More had drowned in the Aegean and Germany is preparing to settle nearly a million refugees within its borders.

The conversation happening not far from me grated on me. Unreasonably, I wanted to walk over and say to them something like: you fools! Don’t you know serious things are happening?

I didn’t.

They were having a harmless conversation. I have had harmless conversations about silly things, too. And I am also aware of what is happening in the world. It bothered me at the moment because on the Saturday of Halloween it seemed no one was paying attention except me. I was having a cranky old man moment.

Last year, there had been a few Trick or Treaters. This year, there were none. As I waited, I watched “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” from Amazon Prime. When I finished, I went off to bed to read a book, soon falling into the arms of Morpheus.

Early up on Sunday, I went off to Christ Church, slipping away after communion because I had a ticket for an HD version of Benedict Cumberbatch’s “Hamlet.” He and the production were superb. It is the first time I have witnessed a production that indicated that Ophelia was fragile even before the Prince of Denmark’s attentions.

At home, afterwards, I did some paperwork and read some more and am now heading down to the city.

The Russian airliner is much in the news; it apparently broke up in mid-air and it is being posited that some “external event” resulted in the loss.

In Germany, one small town of 102 individuals is being asked to take in 750 refugees. The Mayor of Sumte’s wife thought it was a joke when they were first notified. It has energized a youngish local Nazi who has a seat on the town’s council: it will be good for his brand of politics he thinks. This is a harbinger of the challenges facing Germany and those challenges also threaten Angela Merkel’s position as Chancellor.

Erdogan has won a big victory in Turkey, giving him the impetus to push forward once again with a plan for an executive presidency, not that it has been a de facto executive presidency since Erdogan took that office. He has been playing the role of both Prime Minister and President as he feels like it, a bit like the arrangement Putin had with Medvedev.

The day, which began gloriously, has turned grey as we have moved south. Mild temperatures are expected this week, a last gasp of Indian summer.

Loving to entertain, I am having two sets of people in for dinner this week.

We will talk, I’m sure, of silly things and serious matters and I will do my best to not be a cranky old man.